Casting Directors Quotes

When I came out here, my manager thought that casting directors might think I'm a girl, and when I did Threat Matrix, they thought Jamie was a little light.

I’ve been an actor for 10 years now, and if anything I want to talk more about my dad. He taught me that even if you get past the casting director’s door you’ve still got to do your homework: you’ve still got to work hard.

I'm so tired of hearing casting directors ask if I have a sore throat. The people who have told me that my voice is distinctive, it's unusual...those people have always been close to my heart.

'Drive' came to me because the casting director knew my manager and called and said, 'You've always talked to me about Albert wanting to play the heavy. I think he should read this.' My ears just perked up.

When I started out modeling, there weren’t casting directors and there weren’t stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then...

Things maybe take longer usually when it comes to TV - especially network TV. There are usually multiple levels that you have to go through in terms of the casting director, the producers, the studio, the network, reading with other people.

The Dead was cool, It's a great horror story. I went to the casting director of this movie and talked to him, then they called my agent and had me come in and read for it and they wanted to use me.

Casting directors now just see me as the hard-core sniper or prison guard.

I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door. I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch.

A friend of my mom's was a casting director so, really as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.

Auditioning is a funny one. It's all about energy. If you walk into a room and the room feels off or the people feel off, that can set you off. If the room is very small. I know which casting directors I should go to, because the place is conducive to doing a good job and the people are conducive and I know the other ones aren't, in which case I send in a tape.

It's very difficult to put together an independent movie and a lot of times people really don't hire casting directors for that. Instead, they look for people that they've seen in other movies or they're friends with.

I was very obsessed with Ruth Gordon. I really didn't foresee me having any type of career as a leading lady at all because it was just blonds. I just wasn't the type - I was told that by casting directors. I auditioned for Running on Empty [1988] and The Mosquito Coast [1986], and Martha Plimpton was just killing me.

It is so great to go to a casting director and have them wanting to talk about the show that you are in. It's such a great icebreaker. It just makes the environment so much more relaxed.

[Sylvester] Stallone and I were in a meeting for Rocky Balboa. We were laughing about something, and he looks at my mouth and says to the casting director, "Wow, your lip even hooks down like mine does." Then he looked at the casting director and nodded, and I guess that was the nod of saying, "Hire this kid." So yeah, I have a really crooked mouth. They don't work, but I can feel everything.

I was very headstrong about wanting to keep my name when I moved to Los Angeles. But casting directors would call my managers and say I was perfect for the part, but my name wasn't marketable - I was a young guy, and had the old man name of Gary. I kept losing jobs because of the name not being marketable, so I changed it to Garrett.

I didn't really know who [Dario Argento] was at the time. I know him now, obviously. But I went in to be an extra on the movie [Two Evil Eyes], and he saw me sitting out waiting to meet the casting director, and he pulled my mother and I into a separate conference room.

I just think there are a lot of celebrities who don't feel that they have a voice. A lot of actors come from a place of fear, and that's just a general statement about actors. You're terrified the casting director won't like you, you're terrified the producer won't like you, you're terrified the director won't like you, and on and on.

Every casting director I've met is a woman.

When you first get out of doing a show for a long time where you played a teenager, casting directors and producers all still look at you as being the character that you played for so long.

You have to remind casting directors out here that you don't just do one thing. There's a lot of people who do just one thing.

L.A. can be pretty insane because there's so much show business here, but I also know a lot of kids who grew up in Manhattan who are some of the most normal, nicest people I know. Casting directors always say Chicago people are just nicer.

I was rejected by casting directors during the day. I attended class in the evening, then rode 90 miles on the train home.

One casting director told me, 'You're the next Leonardo DiCaprio,' and when I heard that, I said, 'Let's talk about how I don't want anything to do with being like Leo.' He's an amazing actor, but the films we're pushing to do are different. I'm going my own way--in a big way.

If you're a casting director, you're going to be curious to see what Timothy Spall's son is like. But when you get in the door, you have to have something to offer.

When I first started out, it was very, very difficult to even get in the room with directors or casting directors because they would see that I hadn't been to drama school and wouldn't want to see me. Now, I feel like it's changing. We have this new generation of a lot of writers, directors and actors who are just breaking through, and they're doing it for the passion.

I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.

I've always thought that as long as directors and casting directors don't see me as just Harry Potter, I'll be OK. People have shown a lot of faith in me, and I owe them a huge debt. They're letting me prove that I'm serious about this.

If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew.

Maybe I'm too masculine. Casting directors cast in their own, or an idealized image. Maybe I don't look like anybody's ideal.

The casting directors that were aware of 'The Real World' looked at me as a joke. It was so hard to get away from that.

Casting directors tend to be the unsung heroes in this business.

Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up.

As I continue through my acting career I tend to wish I were a little shorter and a few pounds lighter so casting directors would call me in for more diverse roles.

Many casting directors won't hire aspiring actors because you might be burning some chick's headshot under the table so she doesn't get the part.

One of the great things about this cast is that we've been able to take actors of relatively the same age group that would never usually meet. You know, like bridging the comedy/drama world that for some reason casting directors never really want to bridge or you get into one community and that's kind of it.

My first soldier role was in 'Flags of Our Fathers.' Casting director Jay Binder saw that movie and was looking for soldiers for 'Journey's End,' which led to 'Generation Kill.'

The casting director on the movie made me aware of her. She told me what to watch Starter For Ten, which I did and thought she was great in. She was just so charming and beautiful. But I felt she could probably look plain if we tried. And when I subsequently met with her, I was so charmed by her vulnerability and sweetness. Those were two qualities that were the most important for that character.

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background

I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.

I like to audition for good projects because if it's a good project, it's an opportunity to get in front of a casting director.

I've done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and then I got this call from a casting director in Los Angeles. She remembered me from something years before, and she called my mom wanting me to audition for this thing.

My strangest auditioning experience was when I was reading for a TV show, and right when I started the audition, the casting director left the room and yelled at me from the hallway to keep reading.

Your agents and your managers will always say stuff to you like, "It's really important to make a good first impression on a casting director. And even though you didn't get that job, because you did well that means they'll keep bringing you back in." But when you really just need a job to pay your rent, that stops being very consoling.

So I'm here, and not being one for missed opportunities, I made a list of the casting directors in New York and mark off the ones I've already met over the years. The few remaining I asked my agent and manager, "See if you can set up some meetings while I'm here."

I often go to lunch meetings with my agent, a gallerist or a casting director, but if not, I stay at home and prepare my own food because I love to cook. Im great at pasta, fish and nice salads.

My agent in Sweden used to send off interview tapes but I decided to take it upon myself and come to London to visit casting directors which is when things first started taking off for me. I love Sweden but the industry out here is quite small so when I was given the chance to go internationally I took it.

After you do a showcase for agency managers and casting directors and you get this folder and some people had a folder that was thick and some people had a folder that was thin. And there's no fairness to it because it's not a fair business.

I used to put that I studied with Stella Adler on my resume. I never met Stella Adler. But if you told a casting director you studied with Stella Adler all the sudden they'd let you in the door.